According to a report by MacRumors, Apple is facing a legal battle in California in which three iPhone users are demanding a total of $1.8 million in damages from the Cupertino company. They had downloaded and used an app that posed as an iOS version of the Sparrow wallet. The problem: The application had nothing to do with the Sparrow wallet, it was a fake that was used to steal cryptocurrencies. Sparrow Wallet is not available for iOS at all. As a result, the plaintiffs’ crypto assets were transferred to the fraudsters’ wallets between May and August 2025. The victims’ losses are between $120,000 and $875,000, which is why they are now demanding compensation from Apple in court. It is not clear from the reports whether there are other people affected. Accusation about Apple’s promise of security in the App Store
The lawsuit – the statement of claim for which is available to MacRumors – is based on the argument that Apple has broken its promises about the security of apps in the App Store. In its marketing, the company promotes a safe and trustworthy way to download and use apps. The plaintiffs relied on this PR promise when they installed the Sparrow app. The application should never have come to the App Store. Even when they reported the damage, there was hardly any response. Therefore, they are now holding Apple responsible for their losses and are demanding the resulting damages.
Sparrow also criticizes Apple
The dispute is also made spicy by statements from one of the Sparrow developers. At the beginning of 2024 he published a post in which he pointed out a fake version of Sparrow in the App Store. The application has already been reported but has still not been removed. After several reports about apps masquerading as Sparrow, Apple even briefly blocked its developer account in mid-2025. Immediately before that, he had introduced a placeholder from Sparrow itself in the App Store to warn against fake apps.
